from Eighth Eclogue

To the slaughter nations scramble.

And the soul of man is stripped bare, even as Nineveh.

What use had admonitions? And the savage ravening locusts

In their green clouds, what effect? Of all beasts man is the basest.

Here, tiny babes are dashed against walls and over there,

The church tower is a torch, the house an oven roasting

Its own people. Whole factories fly up in their smoke

The street runs mad with people on fire, then swoons with a wail,

The vast bomb-bays disgorge, the great clamps loose their burdens

And the dead lie there, shrivelled, spattering city squares

Like a herd’s dung on the pasture: everything, once again,

Has happened as you foretold. What brings you back here, tell me,

To earth from ancient cloud-swirl?

~Miklós Radnóti

Partial Biography:

During World War II, Miklós Radnóti (1909-1944) was drafted into forced labor because of his Jewish heritage. He continued to write poems and translate poets such as Apollinaire and Henry de Montherlant as well as essays, fiction, and African folk poetry. Radnóti was drafted into a third and final term of forced labor in May 1944. He worked in the copper mines in Yugoslavia; as Soviet troops advanced, Radnóti and his fellow prisoners were force-marched in retreat. Weakened from hunger and torture, Radnóti collapsed and was shot. His body was dumped into a mass grave. Upon exhumation of the grave a year later, a small notebook containing his final poems was discovered. Radnóti’s collected poetry, including his final poems, was published as Tajtékos ég (1946; translated into English as Clouded Sky, 1986). Radnóti is recognized as one of the most important poetic witnesses to the Holocaust, and his work has been translated widely and continuously. Recent English editions of his works include All That Still Matters at All (2014, translated by John Ridland and Peter Czipott). (See here for more.)